Recent Reads: spring edition

Friday, June 19, 2015

This post is long overdue and could also be titled how not to judge a book by its cover because I didn't include photos of any of the books other than The Year My Mother Came Back, which I was fortunate enough to read poolside while we were in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago thanks to BookSparks. I received Among Ten Thousand Things from Netgalley in exchange for a review, the other books were either purchased by me or from the library.

I meant to have the post up over a month ago, but considering I'm calling this my spring edition I figured I better get it up before the official start to summer in just a few days.

"Thirty years after her death, Alice Eve Cohen’s mother appears to her, seemingly in the flesh, and continues to do so during the hardest year Alice has had to face: the year her youngest daughter needs a harrowing surgery, her eldest daughter decides to reunite with her birth mother, and Alice herself receives a daunting diagnosis. As it turns out, it’s entirely possible for the people we’ve lost to come back to us when we need them the most. Although letting her mother back into her life is not an easy thing, Alice approaches it with humor, intelligence, and honesty. What she learns is that she must revisit her childhood and allow herself to be a daughter once more in order to take care of her own girls. Understanding and forgiving her mother’s parenting transgressions leads her to accept her own and to realize that she doesn’t have to be perfect to be a good mother."

I'm a huge fan of memoirs so I was excited to see this as one of the books for the summer reading challenge. It's a heartwarming story that will break your heart a little bit at times. I found it easy to read and it definitely made me reflect on different things in my life. My one small complaint is that it was hard to follow at times because it switched back and forth between different periods of Alice's life. I loved that the story focused on Alice's relationship with her mother as well as her own relationship with her daughters.

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What Alice Forgotby Liane MoriartyStoryline: A women falls and hits her head at the gym. loses her memory, and thinks it's 10 years earlier.

This wasn't a very memorable read for me-- it wasn't bad, but there was nothing I loved about it. Along with Alice's story, there were letters from Frannie (who I think was her aunt??) and Alice's sister mixed in-- I had zero interest in that part of the story and skimmed a lot of it. I didn't see the connect to the main storyline, and was waiting for some big twist or connection but it never happened. I'd skip over this one but a lot of people loved it.

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Coming CleanStoryline: A memoir written by a woman who grows up with parents who are hoarders.

I've had this on my TBR list forever so when I saw it on sale for $2.99 on Amazon and saw that I could use it for the alliteration category for the SCSBC I took full advantage of finally reading it. The story was really well written- it was interesting and heartbreaking and I read it in almost one sitting. I wish parts of it would have went deeper into her feelings and how her parent's recovered from certain incidents in their lives, but worth a read if you enjoy memoirs.

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Jessica Darling's It ListStoryline: Jessica's older sister leaves Jessica her It List containing all her advice and tips to becoming popular in the seventh grade.

The Jessica Darling books are my all-time favorites, so it's a little bit shameful it took me so long to read this book. To be honest I think I was afraid it wasn't going to measure up and I'd be disappointed and I'm usually not one to read middle-grade fiction but I adored this book. If you haven't read Sloppy Firsts read that and the entire series and then read the It List series because Jessica is every bit as clever and relatable as she is in later years.

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Among Ten Thousand Things(via netgalley)Storyline: A woman's children find out about her husband's affair when his mistress sends a box full of their correspondences to his house.

I felt iffy about this one-- the premise sounded promising but I wasn't a fan of how it was written. I liked her writing style but I didn't care for how the book was set up. It was written in three parts-- part 2 telling the story of how everything ends up-- then part 3 returns to the past. I know the author wrote the book in this format for a reason that I missed, but I found it distracting more than anything else.

What Alice Forgot is already on my Kindle and hold the phone: a new Jessica Darling book??? Ahhhh! Now I have to reread the old ones like you suggested (because? because! so good) and then check this one out.

I actually LOVED What Alice Forgot! I do dislike how she zips back and forth from person to person in all her books but this one resonated with me. I think it is because I am old with a kid like Alice and I have gone from new, young, naive love with my husband to the harried, everyday life in your 30's and 40's. I could relate to that.

Okay I don't know if we've talked about this before but OMG YAY ANOTHER JD SUPERFAN WOO! Hahah I've loved Jessica Darling ever since the minute I picked up Sloppy Firsts in seventh grade, all the way through to my most recent whole series re-read a few months ago. I read IT List too and honestly was so impressed by the sophistication of a middle-grade book, but of course I shouldn't be surprised. Megan is amazing. I'm looking forward to finishing the IT List series too. Btw, have you read Bumped or Thumped, also by MM?

Happy I stopped by your blog! I've been looking for new books for summer. I almost done reading * The Husband's Secret (which, is really good). I'll definitely download a few from this list. Thanks for sharing xo

ok i am definitely checking out the other jessica darling books. i did think it wouldn't really be my jam, but you've convinced me. what alice forgot is on my list, i haven't heard the best things so i might just get rid of it lol. the hoarders book sounds interesting though!

I read What Alice Forgot too, and I wasn't thrilled either. Especially with all of the hype it got! I felt like I kept waiting for it to get good and it never did! Looking forward to trying some of these other ones though!

Don't mind me - just catching up on my Bloglovin' feed! I absolutely love your book reviews because you either get me interested in books that I've never heard of or get me to stay away from ones that you didn't like!